Pest Control

Have you ever hit a point in your life where you feel like you wish you were an exterminator? That’s right. You heard me. I wish I had never gone to journalism school and that I instead went to pest control school because then maybe I wouldn’t have mice and roaches in my $1,300 a month apartment in the city. WTF is up with that?! Also, knowing how to trap and kill pests might aid me in dating. If only I could spray certain areas of my body to protect me from insensitive, non-committal Jewish dudes in suits – lucky floor boards. That would be awesome. I wish I could set snap traps on dates to have them injure themselves every time they lied, or told me that they “never feel this way” about women. Vomit. If only I could speak roach or mouse, it would help me deter bald-faced lies from pest-type men. It’s no wonder why women used the saying, “Don’t be a pest.” This is yet another lesson that my mother never taught me.

I was chatting with my beloved gay friend, Nick, in Colorado who’s known me since I was 17 and lived in a dorm (that attracted cedar bugs and wasps, might I add). I told him I would rather have a serial stalker than a mice/roach problem. At least then I could get a restraining order. Roaches don’t adhere to court jurisdiction, I hear. The best part of the story is that the inept company my manager hires to rid my apartment of pests, is called Dependable. It’s like within a name, they are successfully lying to my face. It’s like if dudes were named, “Just kidding – I don’t actually like you.” They aren’t dependable – I stalk them so they call me back and tell them exactly what to do because I read up on it on the Internet. Something that is terrible about the Internet is that everybody can be an expert on something if you read the right article that sets you off into obsession oblivion. I have now become an Internet-certified expert on bed bugs (whom I got from a suit I dated in May), roaches, mice detection, West Nile symptoms (not to be confused with bed bug symptoms) and early signs of unavailable Jewish dudes in suits from the ages of 24-35. I can practically smell them walking down the street. They smell like Raid and disaster.

Sadly, I need to find a nice dude in a suit so that having roaches in my house isn’t so catastrophic. When I was a little, I would just go get my dad if I saw a spider. Now what do I do? My super hangs up the phone on me because he’s old and a misogynist. He likes to put peanut butter out so the mice get stuck on it and scream into the night. He thinks roaches are NBD. At that point, I feel sorry for the mice. I know what it’s like to get stuck in someone else’s peanut butter and scream. You feel helpless, vulnerable, and emotional – for humans, it’s emotional death but for mice it’s terminal. Mice are so weird, as are men who do not know what they want.

Some might say my site successfully deters unavailable (slash all) men from wanting to date me. If only a roach could surf the Web – then I would be an exterminator. Call me Dependable Jess.